Author: T.S. Eliot
Profile: T. S. Eliot was an American born British poet, playwright, editor, essayist, critic and publisher. He is considered as one of the major poets of the twentieth century.
He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. and died in London, England. He completed his education at Harvard University (AB, AM, PhD candidate and Merton College, Oxford. In 1914 he moved to England, settled, worked and married there. At the age of 39 years, in 1927 he became a British subject. Later on he renounced his citizenship in America. His spouse was Vivienne Haigh-Wood.
He belonged to a Boston Brahmin family with roots in New England and England. While his father was a successful president, businessman and treasurer in St. Louis at the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company, his mother was a social worker and wrote poetry. Right from childhood, Eliot was infatuated with literature. His love for literature gradually developed even though he remained isolated due to his physical limitations of suffering from congenital double inguinal hernia. His obsession for books developed once he began reading favorite tales. He has also credited his hometown with fuelling his vision towards literature. Eliot completed his education at Smith Academy, Washington University (at the boys college preparatory division).
Writing style: The skillful writer, T. S. Eliot presents the chaos of thinking of the modern man using the stream-of-consciousness. A number of techniques including fragmentation, repetition, imagism and various other modernist techniques are used by him.
Published Texts:
Earliest Works
Prose
1905 – The Birds of Prey
1905 – A Tale of a Whale
1905 – The Man Who Was King
1909 – The Wine and the Puritans
1909 – The Point of View
1909 – Gentlemen and Seamen
1909 – Egoist
Poems
1905 – A Fable for Feasters
1905 – If Time and Space as Sages Say – A Lyric
1905 – At Graduation 1905
1907 – Song: If space and time, as sages say
1908 – Before Morning
1908 – Circe’s Palace
1909 – Song: When we came home across the hill
1909 – On a Portrait
1909 – Nocturne
1910 – Humoresque
1910 – Spleen
1910 – (Class) Ode
Poetry
1917 – Prufrock and Other Observations
1920 – Poems
1922 – The Waste Land
1925 – The Hollow Men
1927 – 1954 – Ariel Poems
1930 – Ash Wednesday
1931 – Coriolan
1939 – Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats
1939 – The Marching Song of the Pollicle Dogs and Billy M’caw: The Remarkable Parrot
1945 – Four Quartets
Macavity: The Mystery Cat
Plays
1926 – Sweeney Agonistes
1934 – The Rock
1935 – Murder in the Cathedral
1939 – The Family Reunion
1949 – The Cocktail Party
1953 – The Confidential Clerk
1959 – The Elder Statesman
Non-fiction
1939, 1948 – Christianity & Culture
1920 – The Second Order Mind
1920 – Tradition and the Individual Talent
1920 – The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism
1924 – Homage to John Dryden
1928 – Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca
1928 – For Lancelot Andrewes
1929 – Dante
1932 – Selected Essays
1933 – The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
1934 – After Strange Gods
1934 – Elizabethan Essays
1936 – Essays Ancient and Modern
1939 – The Idea of a Christian Society
1941 – A Choice of Kipling’s Verse
1948 – Notes Towards the Definition of Culture
1951 – Poetry and Drama
1954 – The Three Voices of Poetry
1956 – The Frontiers of Criticism
1943 – On Poetry and Poets
Posthumous Publications
1965 – To Criticize the Critic
1974 – The Waste Land: Facsimile Edition
1996 – Inventions of the March Hare: Poems
Awards and Acknowledgements:
National or State Honours
1948 – Order of Merit
1964 – Presidential Medal of Freedom
1951 – Officier de la Legion d’Honneur
1960 – Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Literary Awards
1948 – Nobel Prize in Literature (for pioneer, outstanding contribution to present-day poetry)
1955 – Hanseatic Goethe Prize (of Hamburg)
1959 – Dante Medal (of Florence)
Drama Awards
1950 – Tony Award for Best Play for the Broadway production of The Cocktail Party
1983 – Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for his poems used in the musical Cats (posthumous award)
1983 – Tony Award for Best Original Score for his poems used in the Musical Cats (posthumous award – shared with Andrew Lloyd-Webber)
Music Awards
1982 – Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for his poems used in the song ‘Memory’
Academic Awards
1935 – Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa
Thirteen Honorary Doctorates (including ones from Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne and Harvard)
Miscellaneous Honours
Eliot College of the University of Kent, England named in his honour
Celebrated on U.S. commemorative postage stamps
Star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame
1915 – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
1922 – The Waste Land
1943 – Four Quartets
1935 – Murder in the Cathedral
1948 – Nobel Prize in Literature
1948 – Order of Merit